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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23885848">Losses and Gains</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/youjik33/pseuds/youjik33'>youjik33</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Falling in love with the girl who stole your shoes, M/M, still being in love even after you find out the truth about someone</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 15:28:49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,347</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23885848</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/youjik33/pseuds/youjik33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Once, Bozai had three things he was proud of: two pairs of extremely rare boots, and a deep-rooted belief that one day he would find love.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Bozai/Link (Legend of Zelda)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>121</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Minigame: Round 1</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Losses and Gains</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/only90sbirdsremember/gifts">only90sbirdsremember</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I had a lot of fun writing about this dork. I hope you enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Once, Bozai had three things he was proud of: two pairs of extremely rare boots, and a deep-rooted belief that one day he would find love.</p><p>That hadn’t been so long ago. Now he’s got a pair of thin silk shoes a sympathetic Gerudo sold him at a discount in Kara Kara Bazaar, and he hasn’t seen the woman of his dreams in weeks.</p><p>Literal woman of his dreams, too. He keeps seeing her blue eyes flashing at him, the knowing smirk he knows was on her face even though he never actually saw what was under that tantalizing veil. Sometimes his dream woman steps on Bozai while wearing his old boots and it turns out he’s kinda into that. Apparently even as he’s edging perilously close to middle age, he can still learn new things about himself.</p><p>When he hears rumors about some kind of magical pond that’s supposed to bring soulmates together, Bozai’s first instinct, surprisingly, is not to go running off in his not-especially-hiking-appropriate new shoes. No, he isn’t even sure he wants to try finding it, because he isn’t sure he’s ready to love again. His passion for the mysterious boot girl burned so fast and bright that the embers of it may well warm his soul for the rest of his life; at least, that’s what he writes in his diary.</p><p>But then a niggling little part of him starts to wonder: what if <i>she’s</i> there? What if finding the Lover’s Pond is going to be the quest that reunites them at last? <br/>So Bozai follows rumors and hearsay and badly-drawn maps. His diary is full of lengthy descriptions of the flames of his passion being rekindled along with his hope, some of which he turns into poetry, and what are meant to be drawings of her face but end up just being rows of eyes and eyebrows, over and over and over. It would probably look creepy to an outsider, but Bozai’s diary has a lock, which is only sensible.</p><p>Finally he finds himself sitting in the hills above Hateno Village, feet aching, and before him is a pond that is very definitely heart-shaped, although he’s not sure why it seems to be bisected. Still, this must be it. What are the odds a second heart-shaped pond exists out there? He manages to get his lean-to set up before the rain starts. He could always go into town and wait out the rain, but this seems a lot more romantic, just sitting up here in the horrible weather waiting for a love that will never show.</p><p>He can admit to himself now that he doesn’t really expect her to show, and that there’s a part of him that’s enjoying wallowing in his feelings of isolation and despair. It’s almost as fun as the hope was, and the rain is so perfectly timed that it paradoxically makes his heart feel light. Maybe he’ll become a hermit, just living up here on the mountain alone. <i>There he is,</i> pilgrims will whisper. <i>The man who loved one woman so deeply that when she rejected him he wasted away alone.</i></p><p>Bozai is so wrapped up in his daydream that for a moment he doesn’t register what he’s seeing. When he does notice, he’s sure it’s an illusion, conjuring memories out of the mist atop the lake. But no – she’s really there, standing right at the tip of the heart, staring at him with her intensely blue eyes.</p><p>“You--” he says, and he hasn’t spoken to another person in long enough that his voice comes out as something between a squeak and a croak. She strides towards him, crossing the narrow stone path in the middle of the pond, heedless of the rain. She’s somehow even more beautiful than he remembered. His heart is pounding. “You came,” he manages. “Here, to Lover’s Pond.”</p><p>She looks around, at the lean-to, at the surrounding rocks, at the two halves of the pond, and he swears he can hear her laughing under the rain. “This isn’t Lover’s Pond,” she says.</p><p>“What are you--” he begins, and then catches himself. “Ah, where are my manners! Please, come shelter under my roof.”</p><p>He slides over to make room, and she ducks under the tarp, settling on the blanket beside him. He’s not sure they’ve ever been this close before. Can he feel the heat from her body, or is it his imagination?</p><p>“So,” she says. Her voice is just like he remembers, quiet, but with a firmness that makes it seem as though she’s about to start issuing commands. “Are you stalking me now?’</p><p>“Of course not!” he splutters. “I’m not, I haven’t--” He’s had so many conversations with her in his imagination up until now, but every smooth line he used in them vanishes as he struggles to put together a coherent sentence. “I was hoping to see you, but I never thought I actually would. It… it must be fate! Meeting here at Lover’s Pond after all this time--”</p><p>“I told you,” she says. “This isn’t Lover’s Pond. That’s far to the south.”</p><p>“You’ve… you’ve been there?” he asks, not sure he wants the answer.</p><p>“I’ve been lots of places. But I have a house near here, in Hateno Village.”</p><p>“R-really?” Bozai sputters. What are the odds he would have ended up so close to her home?</p><p>She nods. “And when I heard talk in the village about a lonely man heading up here, I thought it might be you.”</p><p>“And you… wanted to see me?”</p><p>“I wanted to make sure you weren’t starving or freezing to death.”</p><p>“I’m tougher than that, you know,” he says, just a little hurt. Of course, he’s not as tough as she is, trekking through the Gerudo Highlands without a care, but still. “Really, I didn’t expect you to be here. Or there, or wherever. You did reject me, after all.” He feels something oddly like pride when he says this. To be openly rejected by a woman this amazing is something many men could only dream of. The fact that, by her own admission, she cares whether he lives or dies is a bonus. “But of course I still think about you. You can’t deny me that, can you?”</p><p>She’s quiet for a long time, not looking at him, but at the pond and the gray hills beyond. “It’s flattering,” she says finally. “But you deserve to know the truth.”</p><p>“Truth?” he asks as she stands, stepping out of the cover of the lean-to and reaching up to the ties of her veil. She’s pulling it off before Bozai even has time to anticipate it. And of course the rest of her face is as beautiful as her eyes – sharp chin, thin nose, delicate mouth. But he doesn’t even have time to admire that before she starts undoing the ties behind her top. “Whoa,” Bozai says. This is moving in a direction he did not anticipate and doesn’t know how to handle. “W-wait second, what are you--”</p><p>He's torn between wanting to look and feeling he should avert his eyes, but her movements are so quick he doesn't even really get a chance, and next thing he knows he's staring at her chest. Her very, very flat chest. </p><p>"Do I have to spell it out for you?" she says. Her voice seems a little less soft now. "Or do I have to take my pants off too?"</p><p>Bozai suddenly remembers the young man who had shown up near Gerudo Town wearing sand boots. At the time, he'd wondered if there had been another pair floating about, or if maybe the woman he'd given them to had pawned them off on someone else. But now everything clicks into place, and as Bozai takes in the lines of the young man's slim hips and the raindrops sliding down the planes of his chest, he learns yet another new thing about himself.</p><p>"Huh," he says. And then, "I wrote you some poetry. Do you want to hear it?" </p><p>"No," the man says, but he's smiling.</p>
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